


You Have Not Lived My Life

by sootsprites



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Autistic Character, Bioware's treatment of elves continues to be bullshit, Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, Dalish Elves, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22864306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sootsprites/pseuds/sootsprites
Summary: Niora Lavellan was overwhelmed enough by the world outside her clan. The idea that she can't even count on her fellow elves is one too terrible to bear.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 19





	You Have Not Lived My Life

“You have not lived my life.”

Niora Lavellan had been so relieved to meet Solas, up until he made his disdain of her people known. She knew that not all clans were welcoming of strangers, that sometimes they rejected even the flat ears from their fires, but she’d never thought any Keeper would turn away such an obvious font of knowledge that Solas represented. But the more he talked, the more it was clear to her that he thought her people were children with much to learn.

When she met Charter, it had taken the length of a conversation for Niora to realize that the kinship that Niora felt with the elves in the Inquisition would not be shared. She felt like a child again, wandering through a world that was too loud for her, so many faces and people who didn’t make any sense at all.

Sera was the worst, though at least she spoke with the same bluntness that Niora had come to expect from her sisters. Never before had Niora been made to feel small for her vallaslin, nor heard the word ‘knife ear’ spoken so freely. Cassandra asked if there was room in her heart for another god and Niora almost cried.

 _You told me that the world is not kind to The People,_ she wrote to her mother, in her little house in Haven, wiping at the tears that stung at her quicksilver eyes. _I did not listen. The shemlen don’t care about who I am here, just what I can do for them. They call me Herald of Andraste and act like it is something to be proud of._

The Breach hissed in the back of her mind, day and night, and Niora could barely look at the thing without losing all track of her thoughts in the clamor of panic and wrongness that it arose in her chest. She could not return home until it was destroyed, and until then she was trapped here. She missed her father’s stories, she missed the smell of the halla, she missed the soothing voice of her keeper as they worked to memorize the names of the clans and their keepers in time for next year’s Arlathvhen.

Only Lady Josephine was welcoming, in her sweetly fumbling way. She’d greeted her in Elvish and did her best to always be polite to everyone. There were people in her own clan who didn’t make that effort, and Niora wasn’t sure how to express to Josephine just how her kindness had affected her. She’d taken to leaving flowers on the little writing board that Lady Josephine used and hoped it would be enough.

That afternoon, she went in to speak to Lady Josephine about finding a medic for the people in that little village in Ferelden, when she almost ran over a young woman heading for the ambassador's office.

“Ir abelas,” Niora said automatically, before correcting herself back to common. “I mean, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“No, no it’s all fine,” said the woman, who Niora could now see was an elf. She was wearing the blue robes of a circle mage and had a stack of papers in her arms. Her hair was red and her face was clean but strained, a furrow between her brows and lines of worry already beginning to etch themselves in her forehead. 

Niora held open the door for her and followed her in, curious of how this elven girl had found her way here from the circles. Weren’t all the circle mages in Redcliffe or somewhere in Orlais, following the lead of Madame De Fer?

When the girl put down her papers, she looked at Niora properly, and didn’t seem to mind when Niora wouldn’t meet her eyes. “You’re the Herald,” she said, “Or the one they’re calling the Herald, anyway.”

Niora nodded; it was true enough. “I suppose I am.”

“I hope the Inquisition can restore order soon,” said the girl, going back to her papers, moving them into different piles on the desk. “I never really wanted to leave the circles. My name is Minaeve. I research creatures and demons. Seeker Pentaghast and I use what I find to help the soldiers fight them.”

The elf girl turned and reached out to shake Niora’s hand, and Niora only hesitated for a moment before doing so. Minaeve’s hand was smooth and warm, and Niora was comforted for a moment or so.

“You said you were a mage?” 

Minaeve shook her head. “No, just an apprentice. I was never very good at magic. I have just enough magical talent to be a danger to other people. But when the mages rebelled, people like me had nowhere to go. The templars would’ve killed us. Luckily, Seeker Pentaghast took me in, along with the Tranquil I was protecting.”

Niora furrowed her brow, confused. She’d never heard of Tranquil before coming to the Conclave and nobody had really taken the time to explain to her what they were. “Why did the Tranquil need protecting?”

“You’re joking, yes?” Minaeve said, raising her eyebrows. When Niora shook her head, Minaeve frowned. Was she unhappy? “The mages took some of them when the Circles fell, but the rest were forgotten,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. That one Niora knew; Minaeve really was unhappy now. “Most circle mages look down on the tranquil, or pretend they don’t exist. They don’t have any emotions, they can barely take care of themselves, can’t defend themselves at all. It’s a shame, I like them better than most people.”

“Why?”

Minaeve shrugged. “They’re polite, they’re rational, they never get angry at you. When they study, they have a focus no normal person could ever match. But the templars, even some of the mages, mistreated them just because they could. The tranquil never fought back.”

 _The tranquil are just like me,_ Niora thought, tilting her head at Minaeve. _Sort of like me; I know I have emotions._

She wasn’t sure how to phrase her other questions about the tranquil, about the circles, about how Minaeve had come to the circle. So instead, Niora asked, “Why didn’t you want to join the rebellion with the other mages?” Minaeve had said one or two things about the templars but without any of the vehemence that the other rebel mages seemed to have. “Even if you were an apprentice…”

Minaeve shook her head. “I don’t like using magic to fight. I’m not good at it either. I like studying; I liked performing rituals that helped unlock the secrets of the veil. I liked having the templars around to keep us safe.”

Niora smiled at her, leaning her hip against the table. “It’s too bad you weren’t born Dalish,” she said, letting her head fall to the side, her deep black hair so fluffy that it nearly touched her shoulder, in the way that her mother always said was adorable. “My years of study were very peaceful, even without your Chantry soldiers.”

Minaeve… bristled, like a cat puffing up its tail in fear. “Don’t let my lack of vallaslin fool you lethallin. You have not lived my life,” she snapped, all that was calm in her vanished in an instant. “I was a proud member of my clan until my magic manifested. You know what happens when they have too many mages. They gave me a pack and sent me into the forest to find my own life. I was seven years old.”

She probably said more, but Niora didn’t hear her over the sudden pounding of her blood in her ears. It was only when Minaeve’s eyes went wide with what was probably fear and Niora smelled the ozone and smoke that she realized that she was shaking. Her hands were growing very hot, something that happened only when Niora was very, _very_ angry.

“Your clan did _what_?” Niora sputtered out, unsure what was happening with her face.

Minaeve raised and lowered one shoulder, her gaze flickering between Niora’s face and her hands. “There can’t be too many mages to a clan, in case the templars come looking for them. All the clans do something like it.”

“No.” Niora’s voice was shaking with rage as she said, “No, lethallan, they do not.”

The room was quiet but for the soft hush of the torches; the scratching of Lady Josephine’s feather quill was absent, and even the murmurs of the Chant that was always being said in this Chantry were too soft to be heard through the wooden door.

“What clan was it?” Niora asked, her mind whirring through her list of clans and keepers. “Do you remember the keeper’s name? The routes you traveled? Do you remember any shem towns or landmarks of any kind?”

Minaeve’s eyes were wide and green and shining in the torchlight. “I…” She licked her lips and tried again. “I don’t know, the Free Marches and, and Orlais I think. Maybe. Herald, you don’t need to-”

Niora shook her head fiercely, “Yes I do.”

She’d been so afraid here, surrounded by unfamiliar faces, sleeping in a bed that was not her own, with everyone around her wanting something that she wasn’t sure she could give. But here, in this room, with this girl who was family and not family, People and not people, Niora finally understood why she had been spared when all the others had perished in the fire. She could hear her father's voice, telling the story about Dirthamen, lost and wandering the twisting paths beyond the veil.

_“He was alone,” her father said, surrounded by the children of the clan, “without his brother for the first time In his life. And two ravens came to him then, and they were called Fear and Deceit. ‘You are lost, and soon you will fade,’ the raven named Fear said to Dirthamen. ‘Your brother has abandoned you. He no longer loves you,’ said the other, named Deceit. ‘I am not lost, and Falon'Din has not abandoned me,’ replied Dirthamen. He subdued the ravens and bade them carry him to Falon'Din. This they did, for they had been defeated and were now bound to Dirthamen's service.”_

_Niora looked up at her father, his face careworn and so different from hers, the black ink of his vallaslin etched into the whiteness of his skin. He looked into each face, smiling at Niora kindly and reaching out to press his thumb into her forehead, white fingertip against her deep brown brow._

_“Alone and lost, but he never lost faith in his brother,” Rickahron said to her, to all of them. “Dirthamen knew that his brother would never leave him alone, just as I know that my clan brothers would never leave me alone, as I would never leave one of you alone. We are The People, and we do not leave our brothers behind.”_

She looked at Minaeve with all the conviction she’d been missing. “I am Niora Ghil’datten, First of Clan Lavellan. I speak not for your Chantry or for Andraste. I will not pretend that my people are without flaws, but we do _not_ offer our mages up as lambs to the slaughterhouse of human fear and superstition. We do not _abandon_ our children to the woods, not without consequences.”

One silver tear fell from Minaeve’s eye. 

Niora reached out and wiped it away, gently. “Lethallan,” she said, her voice full of compassion and quiet fury, “whoever did this to you will be made to suffer consequences. This I swear to you, by the Creators and the Forgotten Ones.”

That night, Charter brought her a letter in her mother's hand, and another from the keeper. Niora gave Charter one in return, and when Charter understood why Niora had picked her to deliver it, she nodded in that quiet, fierce way she had, and promised to return without delay.

 _Your sisters are coming to you,_ her mother wrote, in her small deliberate hand. Her mother didn’t have much cause to write, and had only learned to keep in touch with _her_ mother after falling in love with Niora’s father, three Arthalvhens ago. _And the rest will follow if you have need of us. You are the bravest of us all, da’len. I knew it when the keeper brought you to us, and all will know it soon. The shems will learn your ways just as we did, give them time. You do not walk this world alone, and as long as I am alive you never shall._

As in life, Keeper Deshanna was brief but kind. _I would never have sent you to the conclave if you were not capable of withstanding the shemlen and their whims. Someday, you will lead Clan Lavellan with wisdom and compassion, and I urge you to share those virtues with the Inquisition. Do not let fear conquer you, Niora. Trust in your kind heart, and do not let anyone make you feel less than what you are._

Niora carried the letters beneath her breastplate, close to her heart, and let them give her strength to fight back for another day.

**Author's Note:**

> Bioware's treatment of elves and mages and mages that happen to be elves continues to be bullshit. I can only take so much before the muse takes hold of my brain.
> 
> Thanks are owed to RileySFS for being a sweet and patient beta


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